


Market Day

by electropeach



Category: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Bee POV, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Fitz and the Fool spoilers, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Genderfluid Character, M/M, implied polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electropeach/pseuds/electropeach
Summary: Sheltered and treasured, I rarely visited the town with my family – who also visited rarely, preferring the quiet peace and sedate life of Withywoods – and this market day with them was a long-awaited adventure, an important day in preparation for an important celebration.Or, a day in Bee's life with Molly, Fitz and Beloved. Canon-divergent relatively early in Fool's Assassin, but may contain spoilers from up to Fool's Quest.
Relationships: Bee Farseer & FitzChivalry Farseer, Bee Farseer & The Fool, FitzChivalry Farseer/The Fool/Molly Chandler, Molly Chandler & Bee Farseer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Winterfest - Rote Gift Exchange☆





	Market Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andy_beloved](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andy_beloved/gifts).



> Dear Andy,
> 
> Merry Winterfest, and happy belated birthday! This entire challenge would not exist without you, because you created the discord that brought so many of us together. I adore the hell out of you for it, and I'm sorry your gift is late! I hope you enjoy it. <3
> 
> The story at the beginning is, of course, from Words Like Coins by Robin Hobb.

The winter sun was pale and bright in my eyes, setting the wide fields of snow on either side of us glimmering with its slanting light. The snow crunched under the wheels of our carriage, and I was safe and warm, snuggled inside my new, bright red coat and the furs spread liberally over the seat. I was staring dreamily at the snow-capped trees slowly marching by us and the gently falling snow as I listened to the story.

“The pecksie narrowed her green eyes. ‘Will you bind me to teach you?’ she asked. Mirrifen shook her head, and said, ‘No, never again. Words are too dangerous to bind anyone with them.’ And do you know what the pecksie said to that?”

I looked up at Beloved, and immediately got snow in my eyes. I made a small sound of frustration and distress, and they chuckled warmly. A mittened hand came up to brush the snow from my face and tugged my fur-lined hood back over my eyes.

The carriage creaked underneath us, rocking gently as it struggled its way through piles of newly fallen snow, searching for the familiar tracks under the soft powdery layer of the current snowfall. The snow was falling in big soft flakes, floating down like feathers, dusting my mother and father, sitting in front of us leaning their heads together as they talked, with a fine layer of white. With a small pile of snow on both their hooded heads, I could almost imagine they were as fair-haired as I was.

Beloved’s arm came around me, wrapping me snugly against their side, comfortably nestled among the furs of the carriage’s back seat. They finished the story they had been telling me during the ride. “The pecksie said, ‘I teach, then’, smiling in approval. ‘You learning already.’ And so Mirrifen became the pecksie’s student, and learned the ways of charms and spells.” Beloved paused, and then leaned forward so they could peer at my face beneath my hood. “Did my lady Bee enjoy the story?”

I nodded, and then, “Yes,” I said, prompted to verbalize my delight in the story by being called _my lady_ , like a grown up. Like Beloved and father called my mother. I was rewarded in turn with a bright smile. It made me want to squirm guiltily, the way my father and Beloved still brightened up to hear me speak even a single word. It was not as though I went out of my way to avoid talking to them, but it was so easy to forget that I could, now, and so easy to stick to old habits.

My father still burned with a firestorm of emotions if I touched him, and Beloved shimmered with futures and dreams branching and splitting into still more futures and dreams if I touched them. Speaking could have served to bridge the current of questions racing between us, but I did not know how to put myself into words without hurting them or letting their pasts in our safe home, so I kept my distance. I liked to think that they knew it, even though I doubted that either realized that I was protecting them as much as myself, and indeed they loved and cherished me as they would have a talkative, bubbly child. It did not stop them from delighting in each word they earned from me. Winter was my favorite time of the year, for with my face averted and with our thick winter clothes blocking direct contact between us I could almost feel like any child, safe and cozy with my family.

My mother had never asked me why I spoke so little to them; she just accepted it, like she did everything else about me, my brave, kind, wonderful mother.

“Here we are!” my father announced suddenly, and jumped down from the carriage together with our driver. Beloved’s face, haloed in a fur-lined hood much as mine, disappeared as they straightened and looked around. I looked up and was startled to find that we had indeed arrived at the town, quite without my notice, and were already in the midst of a bustling main street. Oaksbywater was a picture from a storybook, the houses lining the street frosted with thick, round layers of snow, yellow lights and laughing voices spilling merrily from every shop door and window, and wreaths and garlands of evergreen lining every lintel and railing, decorating every door and signpost. Traders and salesmen were calling their prices from shop doors and stalls around the market square, and people were jostling one another in a frantic, breathless sort of glee as they dashed about preparing for the week-long celebration of Winterfest.

My mouth hung open in dazed amazement and I hardly knew where to look. Sheltered and treasured, I rarely visited the town with my family – who also visited rarely, preferring the quiet peace and sedate life of Withywoods – and this market day with them was a long-awaited adventure, an important day in preparation for an important celebration. The sights and sounds and smells threatened to overwhelm me: there, a woman in the most beautiful green dress, and a lovely bright cap on her dark curls, an equally bright muff around her hands, laughing at the joke of a shoemaker at the door to his shop! There, a juggler in wondrously clashing yellow and purple, tossing winter apples high in the air and drawing gasps and squeals of delight from his audience, gathered around him at a corner! There, a man selling roasted dates, leaning down to hand a cone of those to a young girl of my age, one with soft new winter boots and neatly curled hair and a little purse, from which she daintily paid the merchant before popping a curtsy and hurrying back to her parents!

“My princess?”

I turned to find my father standing next to the carriage, gloved hands reached up toward me. He had finished seeing to the care and feeding of the horses with our driver, and had come to help us down. Beloved gave me the slightest nudge, and I stood up and set my hands on my father’s shoulders to allow him to lift me. Gloved and protected by our thick winter clothes, his touch wasn’t so overwhelming, and I dared to meet his dark eyes for a fleeting moment as he lifted me over the edge of the carriage. His emotions shone so bright in his eyes that I had to avert mine, but they were soft, warm emotions, and I felt warmed by them. My father was happy, stupidly and blindingly happy, with us three where he could see and touch us, safe and sound and, he thought, under his protection.

(He was wrong, of course, my silly father. We were all three of us under my mother’s protection, kept safe from the gales of our tumultuous fates by her love and care. She alone could shut the doors and windows on destiny and tell it to wait its turn.)

“My lady,” my father said as soon as he had set me down, and reached up a hand to help my mother down. She laughed, endlessly amused by being treated like the lady of a large household – she had grown up a working woman, I knew – and batted her lashes outrageously at him as she took his hand and descended gracefully, her warm skirts gathered in one gloved hand.

She moved to take my hand as soon as she was on the ground, and I preened with pride at our matching coats, bright red, with buttons so finely carved out of wood that it looked like our coats were held closed by fluffy bees. My mother had brushed and combed my fine, fair hair into braids, matching her crown of dark braids with silver threaded in it like jewelry. I thought we made a lovely picture and looked very much like the landed gentry we were. Father, too, was tall and handsome in his dark blue cloak and shiny boots, and Beloved’s white and gray coat and scarf contrasted dashingly against the deep amber of their hair and the warm brown of their skin. It gave me hope that father had said that Beloved, too, had been pale and fair as a child; perhaps I would darken to match my family as I grew, and no longer look so strange.

My father was reaching up to the carriage a third time. “Beloved,” he said, softly, and Beloved smiled at him. My father held their mittened hand, and another hand hovered near their waist as he helped them down. I had only heard stories – and dreamed dreams – but my mother had told me that Beloved had been quite fragile when my father had returned with them, some years before my birth, from dangerous, far-off lands, where they had apparently been held prisoner. They had made a full recovery in the intervening years, but my father still treated them as one does his finest porcelain: handled with care, presented with pride. My mother found it incredibly endearing.

We wandered the market aimlessly a while, admiring rather than truly perusing the contents of any of the stalls and shops for what we had on our list. My mother stopped us to watch a puppet show for a moment – an old favorite about how Prince Regal had, after a prophetic dream, proclaimed the return of his brother’s queen and King Verity’s army of Elderlings, and charged into battle himself. My father and Beloved whispered behind their hands and snorted in a futile attempt to control their laughter when the puppet Prince valiantly led the charge himself, roaring his brother and king’s name as his battle cry, and was subsequently named Defender of the Realm by Queen Kettricken. My mother hushed them with mock-glares, and we went on, this time stopping to admire the juggler.

“Nimble young fellow, isn’t he?” my father said innocently.

Beloved smirked. “Juggling just seven apples? Novice.”

I perked up in interest, reaching up to tug their sleeve. “Can you juggle more?” I asked, startled into speaking out loud.

My father and Beloved exchanged a glance – delight, surprise, and mischief flashed in that look – and then Beloved crouched in front of me to be at my eye-level. I liked that; I hated when people leaned down over me, and preferred to look them face to face when I could. “Indeed I do, my lady,” they said and performed a courtly bow as much as one could while already crouched in snow. “If it pleases my ladies,” they threw a quick smile up at my mother, “I might even be persuaded to show you how many, after dinner tonight.”

I looked up at my mother with wide eyes – I had heard wild tales that Beloved had been a tumbler in their youth, but I had thought them my father’s embellishments – and she laughed. “It would make us very happy,” she assured Beloved, and they walked together arm in arm for a while, making dinner plans while my father lifted me onto his shoulders to let me gape at everything the marketplace had to show.

At my admiring stare, my father purchased for me a little leather purse stitched with sunflowers, and my mother gave me coins to put in it. After some time, I dared myself to walk up to the stall where the man was roasting dates, and, after standing mute and suddenly uncomfortable in front of him for a moment, abruptly aware of my smallness and strangeness and paleness even in my fine clothes and with my new purse, managed to nod jerkily when he kindly asked me if I wanted to buy dates. The paper cone warmed my hands through my mittens, and my victory of independent shopping and almost conversing with strangers warmed my chest so that I met my father’s eyes squarely when I held up my trophy and offered my family some dates. He shone pride at me, and I felt almost giddy with it.

Eventually my mother steered us sternly toward our true purpose for visiting town: we were to host a Winterfest celebration unlike any that Withywoods had seen since the days of Lady Patience, and it was to be a celebration that should make her proud, all in strange coordination to some plans my father had discovered among her scrolls. Guests were coming from all over Six Duchies. There were even rumors of the King and Queen and the Queen Mother visiting, and Hap would come and sing for all of them.

My father had ordered a quartet of tumblers to perform and claimed loudly that it was not his fault they were all red-headed, they were siblings and it evidently ran in the family, but mother seemed to think it some sort of homage to Lady Patience and clearly approved. Beloved had written to a woman named Garetha for the flower arrangements, and just yesterday a soft, kind-faced woman had arrived at our front door, red-cheeked from cold, and caused a flurry of whispers to flood through the servants’ rooms by embracing Beloved and presenting them with a black-and-white bouquet of flowers cleverly crafted out of paper and string.

There was still much to do; there were provisions and deliveries to order, people to hire, and preparations to be made. I trudged valiantly after them from shop to shop and stall to stall, offering my cooling dates to them between merchants, and tried to sort out my feelings about a large celebration.

I was excited about the entertainment, the visitors, and the festivities, and could hardly wait to parade Hap around in front of people. Wouldn’t they be perfectly jealous that strange little Bee had such a dashing, charming brother! And my other brothers would visit, too, and their families; I had nieces and nephews I had never met and that were a great deal older than me. I would have a new dress to wear, mother had told me, and new slippers in a matching color, which we had just picked up; I kept tugging at Beloved’s sleeve to stop them so I could take the box from their arms and look at the dainty little shoes in amazement. I was curious about meeting the gentle King and the fierce Queen and the tall and graceful Queen Mother.

But I could not help feeling apprehensive as well. In such a crowd, would I be forgotten entirely, lost in the masses of tall and wonderful people? Or worse still, pointed at and whispered about, held separate and circled afar to avoid talking to me? I was so little, and so strange, and so quiet, and I could not think of a word that I could say to nieces twice my age or queens twice my height.

“Is something wrong, Bee?” my father’s voice interrupted my sullen thoughts, and I looked up, realizing that I had stopped and stood staring at my snow-crusted boots with a deep frown. He, too, had gone to his knees in the snow to be at my eye-level. I looked around and spotted my mother and Beloved by a stall selling dyed garlands and other Winterfest decorations. Beloved was leaning slightly forward to peer at delicate glass decorations, and my mother had her hand gently pressed against the small of their back as she leaned in to take a closer look as well.

I glanced up at my father, then quickly looked back down at my dates; only a few left. “No,” I said, and then, suddenly worried, “Yes. What if they won’t like me?”

“Who?” my father looked taken aback.

“The people,” I said. “At the Winterfest festivities.”

“Ah.” My father nodded solemnly, and I felt a surge of relief; he was taking me seriously. “Well, I’m sure that those who matter will be delighted to meet you, and the rest are not important. But if it helps, I shall let you in on a secret: I have not always been popular at parties, either.” I gave him a slanted look, and he startled me by laughing. My father rarely laughed. “That surprised, huh? What gave me away?”

“You hate parties,” I pointed out.

He shook his head and lifted me from the ground, settling me on his shoulders again. “Not quite. I just prefer observing them from the sidelines to being in the midst of them. Celebrations and festivities can become overwhelming very easily, and I don’t enjoy being in the middle of so many people.” He tilted his head and made a face at me. “Or wearing those silly things they consider fashionable.” I could not help it; I giggled, just a little, because mother had shown me the forest green jacket she had ordered for father, all trailing hems and silver buttons.

My father sighed as though devastated just at the thought of having to be presentable for the Winterfest festivities. Then he squeezed my legs, dangling from his shoulders, and nodded at Molly and Beloved, now lifting lovely wreaths of holly, decorated with glass beads and winter berries and admiring them out loud. It felt strange, looking down at them from such heights. “They love it, though, and I love them more than I despise buttons and neckcloths. Let them decorate the hall and themselves silly, and flit about like bees and butterflies, charming people left and right.” He looked up again, catching me staring at them. “What about you, my Bee?”

I hesitated. I did enjoy pretty clothes, and could not wait to be made all lovely for the festivities. I was excited for the foods and cakes and sweets we would serve and hoped to get a taste of the bubbly drink Beloved imported from far-off Bingtown. I had found presents for some of our household, and could already imagine Revel’s expression at his new brightly colored handkerchiefs, and Per’s at his brand-new leather gloves and a cap. But… “I think I prefer to observe from the sidelines, as well,” I admitted finally.

My father patted my knee. “There is nothing wrong with that. We will lurk together, you and I, and let our loved ones have the attention, shall we? Perhaps we should decide on a signal, to show each other that we would like to withdraw and regroup for a moment.”

I liked the idea – a secret signal! We spent the rest of the day in town coming up with ideas for such a secret message while Beloved and my mother walked ahead of us, my mother’s hand resting gently on Beloved’s arm. When everything was taken care of, the sky was already darkening, and we stopped at a crowded tavern for a bite and some mulled cider before our trip home. The room was warm and buzzed with merry conversation, Beloved’s laughter was like silver bells on a motley and mother’s deep and soft, and my father’s hand brushed my unraveling braids from my face when my head grew heavy against my mother’s arm.

“Here, let me,” Beloved murmured when it was time to leave, and picked me up, my sleepy head falling against their shoulder. My mother leaned close to press a kiss on my cheek and press her brow minutely against Beloved’s with a murmured _thank you, dear,_ while my father settled the tab, and then we were out in the quiet streets, making our way to our carriage.

The air had grown colder while we had been indoors, and snow stopped falling; the stars were bright and silvery over us, the snow harder and crunchier under my family’s boots. The cold and dark had driven the milling people indoors, and sounds of merriment still spilled from every window and opening door as we passed them on otherwise quiet streets. Our breath rose as white mist toward the stars.

That night, when I dozed in my mother’s arms in front of the fire while my family shared a bit of brandy after a late dinner, I could hear fates and dreams and destinies whispering, scratching at our windows and doors like the wind howling and futilely searching for a way in. But we were safe and warm and together, and they could not get us here, so I quietly told them no.

The world shifted, gently.


End file.
